


Love

by GoringWriting



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Self-Sacrifice, Superfamily (Marvel), Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25891732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoringWriting/pseuds/GoringWriting
Summary: Tony knows the look on Steve's face when they travel back in time to that military base. He knows the love story Howard used to tell him about Peggy and Steve. How can be possibly compare to Peggy Carter? He can't.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 285





	Love

Tony stares at where his team all vanishes to put the stones back in their proper timelines. It needs to be done. The only reason Tony hadn’t gone was the same reason Bruce stayed behind. There were too injured to go back. Both of them are sporting arms in slings and casts. Tony can still feel the burning. The pain that had shot through his arm when the stones had fit into his slots. The sheer force of what he was about to do.

He didn’t think it would work. He was hoping the explosion of him using them and them destroying him would cause a release of power large enough to hurt Thanos. 

Instead the stones responded to him. Tony hadn’t thought they would. Afterall even Thanos had needed something special to use them and he still got burned and Bruce had been burned as well. Tony don’t know about Thanos but anything that burned Bruce would probably have killed him. It should have killed him. Tony had planned on it. FRIDAY was ready for it; KAREN was ready to help Peter with it. 

But Tony was more surprised than anyone to wake up in the medbay nursing a practically destroyed arm. Steve holding the hand of his undamaged one and Peter partially curled up on the foot of the bed. 

Tony couldn’t help but smile at the antics of the man he loves and the boy who had become like a son to him. He can’t deny that they make a cute family. But with everything that’s happened can they ever be one?

Tony isn’t sure and he’s not sure he wants to know if the answer is the one, he suspects it will be. He had seen the way Steve had looked through the window at Peggy Carter. He had grown up on Howard’s stories of how in love the two of them were. Even if they had only known each other for a short amount of time. 

He grew up on comics talking about how much in love the two of them had once been and how she had been so upset when he had disappeared. When Tony was younger, he had fallen asleep to the thoughts that maybe one day he would find someone who loved him that much.

He did, but not in the romantic sense. He found Jarvis and his wife who loved Tony like he was the son he knew they were so desperate to have. He found Rhodey in college. Tony too young to date and Rhodey too straight to even consider it when he was older but that’s okay because this love wasn’t romantic either. This was the love of brothers. 

Then he met Virginia Potts and Tony thought he had found his Peggy Carter. Pepper was as fiery as her nickname suggests and Tony was in love with her from the moment they met. But as time went on, they grew and became new people. Pepper grew into the best CEO Stark Industries ever had and Tony grew into the first modern superhero. Something Pepper just couldn’t handle from the perspective of a girlfriend but could from the perspective of a friend. So, they grew again into the closest friends to rival Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes and god help whoever got in the way of something both of them wanted. 

Then Loki came and the Avengers were gathered, and Tony saw his childhood idol in the flesh, and he was less than impressed. This was the man that loved Peggy Carter? This was the man Tony had wanted to be? 

No thank you.

Peter wormed his way into Tony’s heart with the love of a father for his son and soon Tony found himself falling in love with Steve Rogers. The Artist who woke up early for runs and to draw pigeons and the things he saw. 

Tony fell slowly, but he fell hard. Not even the Accords could mess them up too much. Even if Tony was a bit upset that his boyfriend refused to listen at first, but they worked through it. They worked through the world after the snap, the linguist in Tony refused to call it the decimation. Then they worked their way through everything that they had to face.

But then they had to go back in time. To get the infinity stones and Tony saw the way Steve looked when he saw the office and everything inside it and he saw the pain on his face, and he saw the heartache. Could feel it reflected in his own heart. 

So, he snapped. He knew that Steve wouldn’t know what to do. Whether to stay or go back. So, Tony took the choice away. Without him here there would be no reason for Steve to stay here. He could go back and be with Peggy and add to the love story that had inspired Tony as a kid.

But that’s not what happened. Tony did what he always did. He survived and he’s not even sure how he did it. Now he sits at a cabin watching his friends and family travel back in time to return the stones to where they belong and Tony watches Steve go back in time to return the stone that took from that Army base and Tony is pretty sure Steve won’t be coming back. Why would he? He can be with his first love. Can live a normal life in a world he will me marginally more familiar with. 

Peter is next to him, asleep. The poor Spiderling had been completely exhausted and had been running on adrenaline for far too long to be healthy. Tony is smiling softly as the boy’s snores tickle the nape of his neck. He can hear the others slowly starting to trickle back from the past and he closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to see, or well not see as the case may be. 

He only opens his eyes when he feels a shadow fall across his face. 

Steve is standing there blocking the sun staring down at him and Tony lays Peter down and lets himself be pulled into his arms. 

“I…I thought that you would stay with…” Tony says but Steve silences him with a kiss. 

“Peggy has her own life now. And I have my own as well. And there’s no way I was giving it up,” Steve says, and a weight Tony didn’t know he was holding falls from his shoulders and he kisses Steve.

“I love you,” Tony says softly.

“And I love you too,” Steve whispers back.


End file.
